The Prador scout craft seemed almost intact, despite recent encounters with an ECS dreadnought, a planetary defence station, and finally with the ground. It had exotic-metal armour, the Prador’s big advantage over the Polity—that and the fact they possessed many more ships. It all seemed on the turn, however, now the big Polity shipyards were up and running, but an easy win was still out of the question. Earth Central calculated that another five worlds would be lost to the Polity before ECS pushed the Prador forces into retreat. Billions more would die, the war dragging on for at least another twenty years, and then the Polity would still be picking up the pieces for centuries afterwards. Maybe Blegg could find something here to make the Earth Central AI feel a bit more optimistic.
Blegg brought his shuttle in over the cordon, and down, observing autoguns tracking him. Landing, he saw an armoured gravcar and transport speeding over his way, and when he finally stepped from his vessel, troops piled out of the gravcar. It seemed almost as if the attack ship AI had not informed them of his arrival. He learned differently when the ECS commander approached him.
‘Problem?’ Blegg enquired of the woman who stood before him. Her troops headed over to the transport, where they quickly began unloading items strapped to AG pallets.
She nodded slowly. ‘As you came in we got the news: a Prador dreadnought just entered the system.’
Blegg immediately communicated mind-to-mind with the AI of the attack ship far above. ‘Why didn’t you inform me?’
‘Because you were about to find out anyway, and I have more important concerns than keeping you informed.’ replied Yellow Cloud.
‘How long do I have?’
‘A minimum of three hours’
Blegg turned and glanced down the length of his shuttle, sending a command to the onboard computer to open the hold. The ramp door whoomphed out from its seals and slowly began to hinge down on rams. He turned back to the commander, ‘What have you got so far?’
She turned and led the way to where her troops were now towing the floating pallets over the rough ground. Gesturing to one, on which a bulky object lay shrouded in plastic, she said, ‘We got the pilot—almost intact.’
Blegg eyed the object, then the men who were moving it. ‘How many people do you have here?’
‘Fifty-eight.’
‘What about the rest?’ Blegg gestured to the other pallets.
‘The remains of a particle beam weapon, a thermal generator, a missile launcher and what looks like a Prador biological weapon.’
‘What’s your route out of here?’ Blegg asked.
She pointed back towards the city. ‘Same as everyone else.’
‘Very well. Dump the Prador—we’ve more than enough of their corpses on ice. Dump the launcher and the thermal generator—we already know how they work. You have three xenotechs here with you?’
‘Yes.’